1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printer having a liquid ejection section capable of ejecting a liquid such as an ink, and also relates to a program.
2. Related Art
For example, in a printer such as an ink-jet printer, etc., an ink is ejected from a nozzle of a liquid ejection head (one example of a liquid ejection section) to print an image, etc., on a medium such as a sheet. Also, in a printer of this kind, a printer to eject ink drops having a plurality of sizes from the nozzle of the liquid ejection head to obtain a high quality printed matter is known.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-22404 discloses a recording device capable of ejecting ink drops having a plurality of dot diameters from a nozzle of a recording head (an example of a liquid ejection section). For example, in cases where a frameless printing is performed, when recording is performed in the area near the end section of the recording medium in the recording area including the recording medium, the discharge frequency of dots formed by a relatively larger dot diameter among a plurality of dot diameters is changed to be higher. That is, the discharge frequency of dots formed by relatively smaller dot diameters is changed to be fewer. The dot diameters are controlled in such a way as to reduce generation of mists for the following reasons.
Since the distance from the nozzle forming face of the recording head to the surface of the ink absorber provided at a position in which the ink for the area outside the recording medium is ejected is larger than the distance to the surface of the recording medium, mists are more likely to be generated when ink drops are ejected in the area outside the recording medium. Furthermore, small ink drops generate more mists than large ink drops. Therefore, when recording is performed with small ink drops in the area outside the recording medium, mists are most likely to be generated.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-1202 discloses a printer in which, in the normal print area inner than the edge of a sheet, high quality printing is performed by combining three types of dots, large, medium, and small dots, and on the other hand, in the mask area in the vicinity of the end section of the sheet, two types of dots, large and medium dots, are combined to perform printing preventing the generation of ink mists.
In the meantime, a technology for printing a three-dimensional image on a medium arranged so as to face a lens layer such as a lenticular lens, etc., to enable three-dimensional visualization of the image is disclosed (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-42462 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. H7-281327, etc.).
Since a three-dimensional image requires high resolution, printing by ejecting ink drops of dot sizes including at least small dots is required. However, as explained above, mists are more likely to be formed when the ink drops are small. If small ink drops are used outside a sheet especially during frameless printing, the distance to reach the ink absorbing material becomes longer than the distance to the sheet surface, thereby making it more likely for mists to form around the end section of the medium. Therefore, when printing an image including a three-dimensional image on a medium, there is a requirement that generation of mists should be reduced while performing printing at a relatively high definition by ejecting ink drops of one type or more dot sizes including small dots.
This requirement arises not only in the case of using a lenticular lens but also in the case of using a lens layer of other type for three-dimensional visualization. Also, there is a similar requirement not only when a three-dimensional image is printed on a lens sheet, but also when a lens layer such as a lenticular lens, etc., is pasted after a three-dimensional image is printed on a print medium, or when a lens layer is formed by, for example, an ink-jet record method on a print medium to which a three-dimensional image is printed.